In recent decades, commercial airlines have become the principal mode of business travel in the United States and an important mode of business travel in many other industrialized countries of the world. Flight crews and business men and women often travel to distant cities for short periods of time. On such trips, they have a need to carry at least one change of clothing and some toilet articles, but do not require a great deal of luggage capacity.
As the use of commercial air travel has expanded, many passengers, as well as flight crews, have developed a strong preference for "carrying on" their luggage rather than checking same through the airline's baggage checking and claim system. Carry on luggage refers to luggage of the passenger that is carried into the passenger compartment for stowage either under a seat or in an overhead storage compartment. Checked baggage is tagged with a unique identifier and a receipt is given to the passenger. The baggage is then handled by personnel of the airline and, if all the sorting and routing goes well, is stowed in a baggage hold in the aircraft. At each stop, bags designated for removal at that particular destination are removed and routed to a baggage claim area. The popularity of carrying on baggage has grown as an aid to quick exit of the aircraft and the airport by avoiding the delays often associated with retrieving baggage from a baggage claim area at the passenger's destination as well as in response to unfortunate experiences of some passengers with respect to lost or misrouted luggage.
In the United States, regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) limit the size and number of carry on articles allowed each passenger. Thus, in the past a significant amount of work has been done in order to provide carry on luggage which can accommodate many traveler's desires to use luggage that may be conveniently and legally carried onto an airplane and stored under a seat or in an overhead storage bin.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 entitled "Wheeled Suitcase and Luggage Support", which issued to the inventor of the present invention, discloses a conveniently sized suitcase for use as carry on luggage with recessed wheels and a retractable internal handle. The suitcase disclosed in said U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 is a soft sided bag with a soft sided externally accessible compartment attached to the back thereof.
In the past, a number of arrangements for providing externally accessible compartments to various forms of luggage have been employed. In addition to the compartment shown in the above referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 to Plath, soft sided luggage with externally accessible separate compartments is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,767 to Pulichino, Jr. et al. A slip over cover for a hard or soft sided case which includes a soft externally accessible pocket is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,460 to Kim.
Independently accessible hard sided compartments are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,552,438 to Kramer and 4,938,326 to Pfeiffer. Kramer shows a hard sided suitcase of essentially conventional design which has attached thereto an integral elongated hard sided segment with a hinged door, which segment is designed for carrying hanging clothes. Pfeiffer U.S. Pat. No. '326 shows a carrying case with a raised portion on one surface thereof, the raised portion being covered by a lid that is disclosed as usable for carrying interchangeable advertising material and the like.
The externally accessible compartment of the soft sided bag shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 to Plath is convenient and useful. However, the compartment is pleated and collapsible. Therefore, materials placed within the compartment are susceptible to deformation and compression if the compartment is filled with an excessive amount of material or if it is urged too forcefully under a seat. Alternately, if other passengers place additional luggage on top of the compartment in an overhead storage area, its contents can be subject to damage.
Additionally, because it is a soft sided portion of a soft sided bag, over filling same while the main luggage compartment is substantially full can extend the depth of the luggage so that it becomes difficult to store the bag in a location having the minimum clearances used as design criteria for carry on luggage.
Externally accessible compartments are a desirable feature of luggage for the modern air traveller and a particularly desirable feature for carry on luggage. The user often will store a wallet, passport, and airplane tickets in an externally accessible compartment. Additionally, it is often desirable to keep reading materials, such as magazines and paperback books, in such a compartment so that they may be conveniently retrieved without opening a suitcase or a briefcase and read while a flight is in progress.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that there is a need in the art for an improved suitcase preferably of the same general dimensions of the case disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 to the present inventor. It is desirable to provide one or more externally accessible compartments on such a suitcase that are sized to conveniently carry the types of materials that air travellers often want to access during flight or while changing planes at an airport without having to open the main body of the bag. It is further desirable to provide such compartments in a configuration which, even when same are filled to capacity, will not distort the dimensions of the bag that allow it to be conveniently stowed under a seat or in an overhead bin in accordance with the regulations of the United States Federal Aviation Administration and similar regulations of like agencies that regulate commercial air travel in other countries.